"Then how was he able to be such a beast, without paying for his pleasures?..."
Harold Dercksz cast about for a word in palliation; he said:
"The women were fond of Anton ..."
"Women? Flappers, you mean!"
"No, no!" Harold Dercksz protested, repudiating the suggestion with his lean old hand.
"Ssh!" said Ina, looking round.
The boys entered.
"Why, Uncle Anton was had up thirty years ago!" D'Herbourg continued.
"No, no," Harold Dercksz protested.
Pol, the student, and Gus, the younger boy, entered; and there was no more talk about money and the family that evening; and, because of the boys, the after-dinner tea went off pleasantly. Truly, Ina was a good mother and had brought her boys up well: because of old Grandfather, they were gay without being noisy, which always gave Harold Dercksz an agreeable, homely feeling; and they were both very polite, to the great contentment of Ina, who was able to say that Pol and Gus did not get that from the Derckszes: when Grandfather rose to go to his study upstairs, Gus flew to the door and held it open, with very great deference. The old man nodded kindly to his grandson, tapped him on the shoulder and went up the stairs, reflecting that Ina was a good daughter, though she had her faults. He liked living in her house. He would have felt very lonely by himself. He was fond of those two boys. They represented something young, something that was still on its way to maturity, merrily and gaily, those two young-boyish lives: they were not, like all the rest, something that passed, things that passed, slowly and threateningly, for years and years and years....